Sunday, December 5, 2010

Some thoughts about the WBC

The Westboro Baptist Church came to Norman today, and Katie and I went to hold a sign and see what would happen. I've always kind of suspected that these people don't really exist, and someone has been photoshopping their signs into other pictures as a weird, elaborate prank. The fact that they do is a serious body blow to my faith in humanity. Apparently the WBC also protested in front of the Big 12 Championship last night. I find it interesting that the a super-conservative religious organization goes out of its way to offend conservatives and religious people: Baptists, OU fans, the military...

Suppose for a minute that you've bought into the Bill Maher, anti-theist idea that religion is bad, since people use it to justify all kinds of madness all over the world. Further suppose that you really want to help your fellow man escape the captivity of faith, how would you do that? I submit that if you were dedicated enough, you might get together with a group of like-minded friends and troll the world. You'd be as offensive as possible to as many people as possible, although probably stop short of actually killing anyone (since it's hard to effect social change from jail), and you'd do it in the name of religion. Not "I hate fags" but "God hates fags." You might come up with one or two issues, and take a stance that is unpopular, or better yet completely untenable. Better still if you can find some verses from your holy book of choice that seem to support these positions. After that you'd just make a lot of noise and harass people, but especially religious people, since they are the ones you'd need to convert.

Basically, if you wanted to convince people that religion is a bad thing, you'd found the Westboro Baptist Church.